Hey guys! I've been distracted with drawing for the past few weeks. I dunno when I'm gonna get this story done. Here's the new chapter!
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Chapter 13: It's Great to Be Home
"Hey Kai, how is it that… I saw you in Caelin, but you're all the way in Ostia? That's across the whole Lycian nation.
'The home that I was born in was being run down now that I was the only person left. It was about the same week when I met you that they told me to move out of the house and go live somewhere else. So I did. My family lived in Bern. I didn't want to stay there because of bad memories. So I went to Lycia to find a home. I moved around a lot. I didn't have any money, so that's why you saw me steal the elixir. And then I overheard from someone that Ostia has the biggest land in Lycia. When I found out that Ostia is the furthest from Bern, I wanted to go there.' I see. My, that was a very long journey for you, wasn't it? Well, on your way here, didn't you get attacked by bandits since you were alone?
'There was this time when some bandits came up to me, but then there was this archer that helped me out.' Oh really? Where is he now? '… He died when we were fighting some magic users who were bullying us.'"
An archer… dying… magic wounds all over his body. Caden knew that this sounded familiar, but she couldn't believe it. Just to make sure, she decided to ask, "Kai, how long were you traveling with this archer? 'For probably about two weeks. He didn't get far though.'"
Matthew looked at Caden worriedly. She had a nervous look in her eyes as if she just realized something… something that wasn't happy.
"Caden, what's the matter?"
"On my way to Ostia, Florina and I passed a dead archer while we were in the air. If I'm correct, the archer that we passed was the one that Kai is mentioning right now."
"Really? What a coincidence."
"Yes, what's more of a coincidence though, is that the archer looked familiar to me. But I don't know why. Where was the archer going? '… He said he was traveling back to his home in Etruia.'"
"Things are really starting to make sense… and it's getting weird. Do you remember what the archer's name was?"
Kai thought for a moment then fingerspelled a name.
"Alair… his name was Alair. Heh… small world," Caden said as if she was sad.
"So, was Alair someone you knew?"
"Alair was my neighbor in my town in Etruia. He was one of my closest friends. It shames me that I couldn't remember him the first time I saw him. Now… he's gone."
Caden felt like crying, but she tried to hide it. Only a few tears rolled down her face, which she wiped off, and the rest she held back.
"There's no time for me to mourn for a departed friend now. That can wait until later. I'm sorry Kai, but Matthew and I need to get going. Thank you for your hospitality for the past few days. 'It's no problem… I hope your travel is well.'"
She signed "thank you" with the hand signs and the tactician and thief left.
"I hope for the best for Kai. I wish we can see him again."
Finally, the time came to take their first steps onto the Etruian land. They have reached the border, and crossed it with anticipation. Now, as Caden said it, there is about one more week to go until they reach her town.
"Maybe I should've asked Kai to come with us. He seems a little lonely. But, he was doing fine even before we met him. I guess it's alright. Kai's stronger than he looks. Damn… I've been thinking about Kai too much. Maybe it's because he's alone."
One week of traveling went fast for them. It was easily sailing from where they met Kai to the middle of Etruia. They see the village where Caden grew up, Keinkurt. The two were awfully close to her town; it was right in front of them. Caden took one more step…(1)
"Hold it!" yelled a voice.
They looked around trying to find out where the voice came from.
"Take one more step and I'll attack you!"
"I live here. This is my home-" she said stepping forward.
An Elfire magic shot towards Caden, and she quickly evaded as she pulled her sword from its sheath. Matthew took out his dagger.
"I will warn you one more time. Leave, or else I will attack you."
"Are you listening to me?! This is where I live!" she said taking another step.
Another Elfire, and it hit Caden's robe. Another one came out and she jumped out of the way. Matthew made his move and followed where the Elfire came from; behind the bushes and the trees. There, he found the source of the magic! Matthew jumped behind and held the dagger to the attacker's neck. The attacker was young, and he had short, brown hair and the Elfire tome was tucked under this robe.
"You have some nerve not paying attention, kid. Caden, over here!"
"C-Caden?"
She appeared a while later and she stared at her attacker.
"I-It's you! … Greg?"
"C-Ca… Sis?"
"'Sis?'" Matthew let go of Caden's so-called brother and he stood up as Caden and Greg walked up to each other. Caden was kind of height deprived just standing next to Matthew, but she felt even shorter just standing in front of that younger brother who was once a head shorter than her. It was kind of unusual now looking slightly up just to look at her brother's face. Caden smiled and chuckled.
"Puberty hit you, huh?"
"What a nice way to put it!" he replied sarcastically with a fake smile on his face.
"Well, you're an adult now! Last time I saw you was when you just became a teenager. I didn't even recognize your voice! I get to see my little brother all grown up!" she said as she went up to him and hugging him as hard as she can.
"Eh! Sis! Sis! You're gonna kill me just when we get to see each other again!"
"I can't help it! You've become so handsome!" she said squeezing him even harder.
Greg made some choking sounds and tried to pull away from his sister. After Greg struggling for a while, she let go of Greg and smiled at him again.
"Oh yes, this is Matthew, my friend, and Matthew, this is Gregory, Greg for short, he's my brother that I told you about."
They shook hands and Caden asked, "Hey, Greg, why did you attack me?"
"Well… err… Father taught me some tricks where we can detect people-"
"I already know about that, but it looks like you're protecting the village more than five years ago."
"Oh… yeah…" Greg said scratching the back of his head, "About that, well… h-hold on, you have to visit Mother and Father first before I tell you anything more. Come on, Sis! Come on, Matthew, come and meet our parents."
Greg led the way to the house as Caden took Matthew's hand and walked with him. "Whoa… I grabbed his hand! Why did I do that? Uh… hopefully he won't think of anything by it."
"… She grabbed my hand. Did she do it unconsciously or did she really mean to grab it?" (2)
As they were walking by, some of the village folk were staring at them. Caden of course knew most of the villagers, but there were some young unfamiliar faces. My, she really has been gone a long time.
"Hey, isn't that Allard's daughter? My, she's grown!"
"Has it really been five years since she left? Wow, those five years have been good to her."
They reached the house that was the furthest from the entrance, the two-story building that Caden and Gregory call home. They walked through the front door of the house, making their way to the foyer, closing the door after they walked in.
"Father! Mother! I'm home! I've brought someone back, too!"
Her father and mother popped their heads from the rooms that they were in. They were surprised who they saw at the front door.
"Caden!" they both exclaimed.
They ran over to her and her mother embraced Caden, and then her father did so too.
"How have you been doing, Caden? Have you been eating well?"
"Yes, Mother. I've been healthy all this time."
"You look stronger, too."
"You should have seen her, Father! She knows how to use a sword now since she was so bad at using magic!"
"Greg! … Actually… you're right. O-Oh… Mother, Father, this is Matthew, one of the friends I made when I traveled to Lycia. Matthew, this is my mother, Teena, and my father, Allard."
"One of your friends? You have more?"
"Well… yes, actually, a lot more. Y-You see… I was a tactician for an army for about a year and a half."
"Oh, I've heard about that army. You were the tactician?"
She nodded, and Allard laughed.
"Now I see that you have gone further than I thought you would go! I would have never known that you were that tactician!"
"Father, that sounded mean. You know, one of the reasons why I came here was to see if you knew about what I had accomplished. Hey, how did news of my army reach this village in the first place?"
"The other villagers. Word has spread that Lord Pent left the castle again with his wife. After that, we heard that he was traveling with three lords from Lycia, and they had a very fine tactician with them."
"But… Lord Pent had left Etruia way before I met him."
"Yes, but news about Lord Pent spread around quickly in these areas of Etruia."
"I see. So that's how you knew. So… they said that there was a very fine tactician?"
"Yes. They said that the tactician has been with the three lords since the beginning, and the tactician was famous for keeping everyone alive in every battle."
"From what we heard, you've really improved greatly compared to when you first left," Teena said, "It seems that not only did you improve your skills, you've gotten very beautiful too, my daughter."
Caden smiled, "Thank you, Mother."
"So then, does that mean that Matthew here was taking commands from you for a year and a half?"
"Yes, I have been. She's made some very good strategies for most of our battles," he said looking at Caden and smiling at her. She looked at him and smiled back.
"That sounds great. So Matthew, what did you do on the battlefield?" Greg asked.
"I… err… I'm very dexterous. I can open doors and pick chests."
"Hm… it sounds like a thief's work," he said observing Matthew have a calculating look on his face.
"Greg, not all thieves are bad. This one here is actually very cheerful and funny. He wouldn't steal something from just a commoner unless it's absolutely necessary. Matthew is a very nice thief."
"… Do you like him?" Allard asked suspiciously.
Caden froze for a second and felt her face heat up. "Wh-What makes you say that?"
Teena smirked and chuckled. Her father went on. "You seem to talk very positive about him. And by the way that you looked at him, you look cheerful when he smiled back at you."
"So then, Sis, is Father right?"
There was a silence for a couple seconds, and then someone yelled out, "Dame Teena, General Allard!"
Allard sighed, "Come on Greg, Teena. Caden, you and your friend stay in here. You both are visitors after all."
"But Father, they only asked for you and Mother. It's only a village meeting, isn't it?"
"It might be, but come with us anyways. They might need you."
"Sigh… alright."
The three left the house and closed the door. Caden went to the window to see what was happening. Then, she felt Matthew's hand on her shoulder and she turned to look at him.
"So, is there anything you want to talk about?" he asked having a smirk on his face.
"He must be referring to THAT. Um… can we talk about that later? My father kind of brought that up in an awkward time, if you don't mind," she said with a nervous look on her face.
"I understand. Very well then."
Caden sat down on the couch and placed her hands on her knees. Matthew sat next to her.
"So, how do you like the village so far?"
"Hm, by the way your brother attacked us, there are some skilled people here. It seems like a nice and quiet village."
Caden chuckled, "Oh? Well you haven't been here long enough to know that 'quiet' isn't on of the adjectives describing this village."
"I see. Maybe later I'll get to see that non-quiet side then."
"Usually Keinkurt is active when night comes. It's nice that way, especially since all the people here know each other. Because of that, we have a lot of festivals and village parties."
Caden stretched and lied down on the extra space that she had on her side of the couch lying towards Matthew. "I've forgotten how comfortable this couch was."
"It has been a while since we've actually slept properly."
As Caden yawned, she stretched, and she placed her arms along Matthew's legs. It was her habit of doing that when she was lying down. She usually did that to people who she knew well, so she hoped that Matthew didn't mind. She heard the door open, and Greg came through the threshold. Caden looked up, without moving from her lying down position. Greg looked at them with a suspicious look, almost like a suspicious glaring in his eyes.
"Well, what were you two doing here? Were you guys doing what I thought you were doing?" he said with a sly tone.
"Shut up, Greg! We weren't doing anything!"
"Yeah, sure you weren't," Greg sarcastically replied as he closed the door behind him.
"So, where's Mother and Father?" she asked standing up from the couch.
"It's as I thought. They're at a village meeting."
"Oh yeah, I almost forgot. What's with the tighter security around the village?"
"Well, recently there have been a number of bandits and raiders seen around this area of Etruia; about three times now this village has been attacked. So in order to keep the peace in our village, and keep our valuables safe, we had to 'up' the security."
"I see. Well, how long has this been going on? And… do you think the bandits and raiders that are coming by know about the village treasure that's stored here?"
"I doubt that those low lives know about the treasure. Besides, we have it safely hidden. Only the village magistrate and our family know where it is."
"I see. Well, it doesn't look like much has changed in five years, but I might be wrong because I just walked straight here."
"And you would be right. Maybe later you can go ahead and look around."
"I will do that later. I haven't had a good night's sleep in a while, and it's been a long time since I've slept in a comfortable space. Let me take my nap," she said to her brother.
"Well, if you feel like doing that, why don't you go to your room? It's been untouched this whole time, besides the fact that mother went in there many times cleaning."
"Oh really? Well that's nice to know. Wait… Matthew, what are you going to do when I'm taking a nap?"
"He can come with me. All I'm doing is running errands for some of the villagers. He'll get to see the rest of the village."
"That's a good idea. Are you alright with that Matthew? I feel like I'm treating you like a rag doll."
"No, I'm fine with that. I don't mind going with your brother. It would give me something to do."
"Okay, see you later then."
Gregory and Matthew left the house and Caden made her way to her room which was at the end of the hallway of the second floor. She felt nostalgic walking down the hallway, probably because it's been five years since the last time she's done that. She reached the door to her room, and she placed her hand on the door knob. She opened the door, and she saw that, as Gregory said, her room was untouched. It was still a light blue color with a hint of green. Her bed was still in the same place, and the pile of books and notebooks that were on her desk were just as she left it. She smiled warmly because of the fact that she hasn't seen her own room in a while. She walked across her carpet, brushing her fingers across the dresser that was near the door. She made it to her bed, and sat on the edge of it. It was still comfortable, and the groove of her sleeping on the mattress was still there. She took off her boots and settled in the groove of her mattress. She instantly fell asleep afterwards.
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End of Chapter 13: It's Great to be Home
Author's Note:
See? This time I didn't end this with a cliff hanger, haha. I dunno. I'm thinking that some of this material that I wrote down is kinda corny. Maybe that's just me though.
1) If you don't know how to pronounce the village's name, it's kayn'-kurt. I made it up.
2) This whole thinking thing of "she grabbed my hand!" thing came from one of my friend's fanfics. It was pretty funny when I read it, so I decided to do something like that in mines.